Record 9.63 Million US Households Worth $1 Million or More

A record number of millionaires now live in the United States, according to a new report.

The figure stands at 9.63 million households — excluding the value of the homes — that are worth at least $1 million. The previous high was 9.2 million, registered in 2007 before international markets began their decline.

"Most of the financial damage done by the recession has been erased by recent record-high markets in 2013 as well as continued rebound in the real estate markets," Spectrem Group President George H. Walper Jr. told the Times. "In terms of the affluent investor, it is fair to say they have finally recovered from the economic downturn."

Households worth at least $25 million now number 132,000, more than the previous high of 125,000 in 2007.

Meanwhile, households worth at least $100,000 total 38.6 million, more than a million higher than last year’s figure.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year the number of millionaires in the United States increased by 53,000 from 2012 to 2013. The state with the most in 2013 was California with 777,624. In second was Texas (456,949) and New York (429,153) was third.

Maryland had the most millionaires per capita, with 169,287 of its 2,199,912 households holding the distinction. That’s 7.7 percent of all households in the state. New Jersey and Connecticut were second and third.

North Dakota, according the Phoenix Marketing International data cited in the Journal, was the fastest-rising state on its list. The state, which has an increasingly large footprint in the energy industry thanks to coal, oil, and gas reserves, climbed from 43rd in 2012 to 29th on the list. As of Dec. 31, it had 13,494 millionaires out of 293,994 households.

Bismark Chamber of Commerce President Kelvin Hullet said the millionaire boom in North Dakota goes mostly unnoticed.

"I’ve seen the occasional Bentley," Hullet told the Wall Street Journal. "But mostly, North Dakota is the type of place where someone can be very wealthy and you’d never know it."

A record number of millionaires now live in the United States, according to a new report. The figure stands at 9.63 million households - excluding the value of the homes - that are worth at least $1 million. The previous high was 9.2 million, registered in 2007 before...